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[Allen H.]

This came up in a very recent thread...

What happens with me is something I call "revving".  I get into this feedback loop where I *know* I have a ton of things to do, I can't pick one, they all seem important, everyone wants something yesterday, and AAAAAAAAHHH!! 

When that happens, I suggest tequila.  You can mix it or shoot it, but either way it tends to slow my brain down just enough that I can get onto the next thing.  The next thing might be a nap, of course.  Depends on how much tequila is involved.

In the recent past I have found myself in the "endless loop" mode.  Where I have 3+ tasks on hand (>2 for me) and all of them are time-critical (happening now), and also require attention (I feel they're important), my brain can sometimes find itself in "endless loop mode"- or as Shane called it, Revving.

An example- I am a full time Graduate Student/Researcher, but a part-time Staff-Technician at my University (dropping the last when the semester starts, thank God).  On Friday, we had a visitor from Hans-Meitner in Berlin.  His work was critically close to my work, and so I knew devoting attention to him was important.  However, I also had tasks in the same building a few floors up for my Staff job.  Of course a few things were happening at once, and I ended up with too many things on my plate- so I went a bit into Endless Loop mode- effectively wasting about 1/2 hour or more during critical time.  I need to temper that with the fact it wasn't really "critical time"... as a Grad-student all time is to some extent your time... so it's not like it was "company time"... but I could easily see it being company time in the future.

What was the appropriate response to having 4 things to do at once?  I think I know some of the answers to this, but I think a discussion about how you like to deal with Revving and plowing through the tasks before you when it happens would be a great thing. 

I unfortunately can't reach for the Don Julio Reposado while at work... so another option would be be good.     [Although, I have found myself in endless loop mode and had the ability to have a quick drink (think very late night writing/working)- and it's done wonders.  Quiets the brain a bit and allows it to get moving on something.]

I'm all ears! 
-Allen

[Jason Rehmus]

I feel this a lot at work. The only help I've found is to remember a couple of truths. I sometimes have to repeat them, mantra like, until I can move forward again.  They are simple and, on the surface, insufficient.  But I hope they help you as much as they help me.

• Multi-tasking is a myth. I can not do more than one thing at a time.
• *to myself* "All you can do is all you can do. And all you can do is enough."

I know this advice will come across as overly simplistic. But, the fact is, you can not do two things at the same time any more than you can be in two places at the same time. It is imperative to pick one item and then do it. With gusto! Finish it then move on. That's the only way to get all four things done; do them one at a time.

[Michael Ramm]

I just finished a first read of a new book from Dave Crenshaw called The Myth of Multitasking. It was a really good book.

It is taken from the perspective of a 'productivity expert' trying to convince a CEO-type of a small-medium business to realize that Multitasking is a myth. No one has the skills to actually do two independent things at the same time. It is a quick read (138 pages, about 2 1/2 read).

I will be interviewing the author for BBP and the post will come out on August 25th. He is doing a blogger's tour and he asked BBP if we were interested in reading his book.

I am glad that I did. It has a lot of good points that I will talk about later. I want to read it again with more focus to draw out some questions for my interview.

Michael

[Luther]

Hi everyone.  You know the whole idea of multitasking I agree is wrong-headed and probably impossible.  I used to be a navigator in a warship before I became an investment banker (yes, really, a strange story but true) and I would often have a headset on with a different person reporting numbers etc continually to me in separate ears, while I have a Captain talking to me, an officer of the watch that I would give orders to (after synthesizing the information coming into each ear separately) and a multitude of bridge staff that I would bark out orders, requests or warnings to.  I accomplished this by lots of coffee, chocolate and a 'mind like water'.  Exhaustion usually was close behind.  But I learnt after a while that I was actually 'thin-slicing', i.e. slowing down the world perceptually while I deconstructed things around me.  Yes, it sounds weird and it was for about ten years when I had to take a rest.  The point is that multitasking is a myth and I should know!

I am now an investment banker and see people melt in the face of a multitude of competing priorities. while working on a transaction  I used a Covey formula for a while but it was too top down.  Then I went to GTD, too bottom up.  So now I am a GSD via Omnifocus(iphone) kind of guy but am still in serious flux.  In the end, I gut out what is important and if the priority staring me in the face screams then I shift focus-- maybe.  My view is you have to slow down your perception of the world (or speed up your decision-making, info gathering) and just persevere.  I now realise that it is not about getting it all done, just about getting the next right thing done right the first time.  And like Jason says, one at a time. 

So do some people multitask? Well kind of...  It is really just thin-slicing of time but to the rest of us it seems like multitasking.  Kind of like Asimov's dictum that Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.